A Phone Call Away
by Loxare
Summary: Jason gets injured during a fight and ponders who he could possibly call. One-Shot.


**AN: For the purposes of this story and because I rather like my artistic licence, Batman #40 didn't happen.**

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His back thudded against the wall, then scraped as he slid down it. Coughing weakly, he swept his gaze around. Forty seven enemies, a mix of thugs and ninjas, littered the alleyway. None of them were moving, either unconscious or dead. He couldn't make himself feel bad.

He probably should. He wasn't out with Roy right now. Things had been a bit slow, so he'd come back to Gotham for a quick patrol. A quick patrol which had ended with him bleeding on an alley wall. Yeah, that was about right.

Grunting, he raised his left hand to his opposite shoulder. His collarbone was broken. So were four ribs and an ankle. He could handle those. And the cut on his head. And the ones on each of his arms. And the one across his ribs, and the gunshot in his shoulder. He could even handle the sword still sticking out of his leg, a Western sword surprisingly. Not a katana. All of them at once was asking a bit much though.

His eyes were blurring, but they still managed to land on the red blob, just out of reach. His helmet. If it wasn't broken, he could call Roy, ask for a pick up. Or a first aid kit. At this point, he'd take a band aid. But it was, so he couldn't.

Fantastic. He couldn't call Roy. He had his phone, but Roy had broken his yesterday. A stray hit on his pocket. Damn mimes. They were so sneaky. Probably the lack of banter. Most villains shouted about how they were going to kill you horribly. Mimes just pointed at you and slid their fingers across their throats.

Who else could he call though?

Not Dick. Dick was "dead". Oh, he had died, but for about two minutes. If that. It barely counted. Of course, he had tried to make the rest of the Bats believe he was still dead. Jason didn't believe it for a moment. So he'd hacked into the Batcomputer. Dick was alive, working as a secret agent, and not carrying a cell phone. So he was out.

Tim? Nah. Their relationship was better – Jason didn't know why, considering all the times he tried to kill the little know-it-all – but it was. They'd had breakfast. But Tim was on the other side of the country hiding his Superman-knock off from the authorities. Cell phones could be tracked, so his was either off or abandoned.

And Damian? Yeah right. Last Jason had heard, he was in some League of Shadows base doing things with a red, fluffy, flying dog-thing.

Alfred was in Europe visiting family. He didn't have Harper Row's number. Babs had gotten a new phone and changed the number. Honestly, he'd have thought Bruce would have kept a better communication net on the Bats.

Bruce.

He coughed again, feeling blood run down his chin. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and regarded the screen.

Bruce was alive. Bruce was probably in the city. And the number Jason had in his phone had always been Bruce's. He always kept that phone on him, he always kept it charged, he replaced it the moment it broke. Pulling up the contact screen, he stopped, thumb hovering over the "Call" button.

His relationship with Bruce was better. He'd been in Gotham quite a few times, before and after the Outlaws had broken up. And every time, he'd refrained from using fatal shots. Knee caps, feet, hand-to-hand combat, rubber bullets, everything but real bullets in vital areas. This though.

From what he could remember of the fight, only ten of these scumbags were still alive. Thirty seven corpses sitting in a Gotham alleyway. If Bruce did answer, if Bruce did come, Jason would get medical attention. He would live. But he would be sent straight back to Arkham.

His Arkham cell, right down the hall from the Joker. The Joker, who would laugh far into the night, setting off nightmares. Batman didn't get it. Arkham didn't help the inmates, it made them worse. If Jason went there again, he knew he wouldn't come back out. Sure, he'd probably come out alive, either breaking out or walking out with his full skin intact. But his mind would be gone.

He'd been through that before. It had taken a dip in the Lazarus Pit to fix and he wasn't going through that again.

He wouldn't go through any of it again. The Asylum, the Pits, none of it.

He would rather die.

Looking back down at his phone, at his thumb still floating above the "Call" button, he sighed.

His thumb pressed down on the "Dismiss" icon.

Taking a breath, his hand fell to his side. Distantly, he heard his phone clattering across the pavement. His eyes drifted closed.

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 **AN: This one was actually based on a picture I drew. And then Arrow said "Now I want to read a story about it" and then she got mad when I ended it there. If you want to see the picture, there's a link on my profile.**


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